Schmidly, cover your tracks everyone.

Thursday's Journal, link.

On Monday, UNM President David Schmidly reportedly warned the university's senior administrators about leaving paper trails, reminding members of his executive cabinet that e-mails, text messages and cell phone records are all subject to disclosure under the Inspection of Public Records Act, and he suggested they use landlines to make sensitive calls.

The university would neither confirm nor deny Schmidly made the remarks, issuing instead a statement from departing university attorney Patrick Apodaca.

"We do not comment on rumors,"

If UNM President David Schmidly actually gave this advice to the leadership of the UNM, it is reason enough to remove him from office immediately.

The whole idea behind open government laws; the Open Meetings Act and the Inspection of Public Records Act, is, the public has a right to know how their power and resources are being spent.

It is impossibly difficult to overstate the importance of truth telling in a Democracy; without it, there is no Democracy.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside. . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.
Woodrow Wilson

Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.
Jeremy Bentham

For the most part, officials love secrecy because it is a tool of power and control, not because the information they hold is particularly sensitive by nature.
John Reid, 1999

I believe that a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society.... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless.
Sissela Bok, Swedish philosopher, 1982

A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.
James Madison, 1832

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry, American colonial revolutionary

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show it can bear discussion and publicity.
Lord Acton

Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue.
Jeremy Bentham, 1768

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James Madison, fourth American president

photo Mark Bralley